


The Evil Twin

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Gen, Gryffindor George Weasley, Severus Snape Being a Bastard, Slytherin Fred Weasley, Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-01 19:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16771780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: Fred is excited to be going to Hogwarts with George. After all the stories from his brothers, he knows that he will have a grand old time pranking up Gryffindor Tower with his twin. He's going to learn about magic, and together they're going to become the greatest wizarding jokesters of all time.But when he tells the Sorting Hat this, he discovers that the Hat has a different idea of the best house for him... and he gets stuck in Slimy Slytherin, with all the pure-blood snakes.This isn't going to go well for him.





	1. A Bloody Slytherin

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story is unfinished! I started this three years ago after seeing a random Tumblr post about Fred and George being Sorted into different houses, and I immediately wrote up a couple chapters.... but I never got much farther than that.
> 
> I've been going through old fics and trying to sort through works that aren't necessarily "finished" but are still good, because I'm tired of never letting anyone else read this stuff.
> 
> This work is marked as "abandoned work - unfinished and discontinued" but I'm posting the chapters I have one at a time, and I am keeping the option open to eventually continue it (as I do with all my unfinished fic). Just don't get your hopes up, okay?

_Ah, another Weasley,_ the Sorting Hat whispers as it plops onto his head. _I can always tell_.

Fred grins. _That’s me._

_Look at your mind. You’ve got a noble heart, and a thirst for knowledge, and your loyalty knows no bounds. You’re talented, creative, and clever. You have passion, drive, the likes of which I seldom see. You could become great, one of the greatest wizards of your time._

Fred sticks his tongue out and bites it between his teeth, tilting his head from one side to another. _I know_ , he says.

_You have an option here. There are two houses which you might do well in – you’ll find friends in both places, and you’ll grow in talent and abilities in either, but I think you’ll find somewhat different values in them. Do you have any preferences for house choice?_

Fred grins even wider, confident. _I want you to send me where I can become the greatest joke inventor of all time_ , he says. 

_Excellent choice,_ says the hat, and then the rim is ripping wide open. Fred doesn’t even wait for the roar before standing up and heading towards the red table.

“SLYTHERIN!” the hat screams.

Despite the size of the Great Hall, the sheer number of people in it, somehow it goes silent. He glances over towards the table where everyone is clad in green. They watch him with blank expressions, mouths in tight lines. Fred can even see some of them muttering. Probably _A Weasley? A blood traitor? In_ our _house?_ They aren’t clapping for him. None of them.

He wrenches his head to the opposite end of the hall, and there are his brothers, Charlie and Percy. Their eyes are wide, their jaws slack, mimicking each other perfectly. Beside them are a pair of empty seats, because of _course_ he and George were going to be Gryffindors.

George. He whirls around to lock eyes with his twin.

Their expressions must mirror each other, he thinks, because his sees his twin’s eyes widened in fear and his mouth slightly open in a soundless question, the same as his own. And then George closes his mouth, and shuts his eyes, grimacing as he turns away. His twin is the last one standing in the line, and Fred flinches at the rejection.

Then a single clap echoes through the hall. Fred looks back to the Slytherin table, where a boy prefect is standing in his seat, his face impassive, as he puts his hands together. Next to him, a girl prefect leans out and grins, joining in with her own enthusiastic clapping. She elbows the girl sitting next to her, and then she starts clapping, too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t catch on. The awkward trio of claps echoes weirdly in the huge hall.

Fred drags the Sorting Hat off of his head and drops it onto the stool before making his way across the Great Hall to the table of students still glaring at him. The girl prefect lets out a whoop, but only succeeds in causing a single other first-year to start clapping. Fred ends up sitting next to him, because he might as well. He’s grateful when the lukewarm applause dies out.

He doesn’t turn to watch when McGonagall calls out, “Weasley, George,” because he _knows_ where his twin will go. Sure enough, it’s not two seconds later that the Sorting Hat shouts “GRYFFINDOR!”

The applause from the Gryffindor table is immediate and loud and Fred sinks down further into his seat when hears it.

Dumbledore steps up and gives a tiny little speech, and then the feasting begins, but Fred doesn’t hear him, can’t stop looking at his empty plate and thinking _I’m a Slytherin, I’m a Slytherin, I’m a bloody Slytherin_.

The boy sitting next to him – the one who had clapped at the end – pokes him in the ribs. “Hey, mate,” he says. “Tough luck, there. I hear it’s hard when a family’s all been in one house.”

Fred continues to stare down at the empty plate. “They’re going to kill me,” he says. “I’m a bloody Slytherin.” The curse slips out and he doesn't care.

“Hey, watch the tone,” the boy says. “I’m a Slytherin, so we can’t all be that bad.”

Fred finally look over at him. “And who are you?” he says.

“Adrian Pucey,” the boy answers, sticking his hand out.

Fred wonders at what it means to take a handshake from a Slytherin, and then shrugs. “Fred Weasley,” he says, taking the hand.

“Yeah, I kinda put two and two together,” Pucey says, grinning. “Nice to meet you, Fred.”

“Thanks,” says Fred, unsure whether saying “likewise” would be too much of a lie for even him to stomach.

“Are you gonna eat anything?” says Pucey, looking down at Fred’s empty plate. “I mean, come on, it’s feast night! Your first night at Hogwarts! You should be celebrating.”

Fred tries to look back to the Gryffindor table, but he can’t see his brothers’ faces in the sea of bobbing heads.

“Hey,” says Pucey. “Food. Eat. Do you like dumplings? How about lamb curry?”

Fred allows Pucey to pile his plate with food, tuning out the sound of his blabbering. He takes a fork, sticks it into a heap of mashed potatoes, and heaves it to his mouth. The buttery flavor and smooth texture are better than what his mom scrapes by at home, but Fred just chews and swallows, putting another forkful into his mouth when the first bite is finished.

He’s a bloody fucking _Slytherin_.

Despite Pucey’s best efforts, Fred doesn’t end up eating much. He doesn’t even eat any dessert, which Pucey declares is a crying shame immediately before stealing Fred’s helping off of his plate.

When Fred glares at him, Pucey just shrugs. “Can’t let good treacle tart go to waste,” he says, sticking the spoon in his mouth.

With his cheeks puffed out from treacle and a smeared spoon sticking halfway out of his mouth, it’s hard for Fred to believe that Pucey is really an evil pureblood Slytherin. He just looks like an eleven-year-old kid really, _really_ enjoying his dessert.

“Careful,” Fred says before he’s even realized he’s spoken. “Stick that spoon any further in, and you’ll choke.”

Pucey pulls the spoon out with a pop and sighs dreamily. “Ah, but what a way to go,” he says.

Fred decides a kid who will joke about dying from choking on treacle can’t be wholly evil. Maybe it’s just the house that ends up corrupting them. In that case, he’s going to have to be extra vigilant. Not that he wasn’t planning on being vigilant already, because all he can wonder is why was _he_ put in the slimy snake house?

There has to be something _wrong_ with him. None of his brothers are Slytherins.

“Hey,” Pucey says, poking him in the side. “C’mon, it’s time to go to the dorms.”

Fred thinks of Gryffindor Tower, the portrait that Bill and Charlie and Percy had painstakingly painted for him and George with their words, the warm fire, the plush rug, the ability to stick your head out the window and feel the wind rushing past. He’s not going there, not tonight. He might not ever even get to visit. His brothers probably hate him.

The two prefects who’d started clapping for him are rounding up all the other first years, so he and Pucey gather together with the rest of them (what do you call a group of Slytherins? A gaggle? A slithering? A murder?) and follow obediently. The first sinking feeling Fred gets is when he realizes that they are going _down_ a lot more than they are going up.

All Fred can think about, when they finally reach the Slytherin dorms, is that they’re basically in a dungeon, and it’s perfectly appropriate. He’s imprisoned down here, with the Slytherins and Death Eaters.

Pucey wrinkles his nose. “Really?” he whines. “We live _here_?”

The girl prefect smiles at him. “Oh, just you wait til you get inside,” she says. “I think you’ll find it better than you expect.”

She turns to the blank wall and says, “ _A posse ad esse_.”

Fred’s feet sink into the plush green rug as he steps into the Common Room. The fire glowing on the hearth and the green glass lanterns send flickers of light against the jade-colored walls, which in turn send a million reflections twinkling into the room. Huge puffy green couches and chairs are scattered about somewhat haphazardly, crowded around mahogany coffee tables. Slytherins have already filled the room, their ties and scarves glittering green. Everything is edged with silver, and from a small window above the moonlight filters through the clear water of the lake.

It’s not just magical, it’s like walking into a fairy tale. The room is _gorgeous_.

“Whoa,” he and Pucey say at the exact same time, and Fred can’t help but turn and grin at him, because for an instant, he thought it was George. Who but his twin would say the same thing at the same time as him?

When looks into Pucey’s grinning face, though, he remembers where he is and why. Fred lets the smile drop and turns away.

The girl prefect – Fred thinks her name is Something-or-Other Lefevre - is standing in what might be considered the center of the room, although with the willy-nilly placement of chairs, it’s difficult to say for sure that’s the center. She claps her hands together once and addresses them. “All right. All you first years are in the third floor down from here, girls on the right, boys on the left. Your luggage has been moved in already, let me know if anything went missing. If you feel you’ve been placed in the wrong room due to your gender identity, or that you require a room of your own for any reason, please contact either me, my fellow prefect Edgar Ballantine, or our Head of House, Professor Snape.”

Then she pauses and gives them a concerned, almost conspiratorial look when she speaks again. “Seriously though, if you need special accommodations, try me or Eddie first. Slytherin House looks out for its own, but some Slytherins look out more than others.” Fred hears a quiet snicker from one of the older Slytherins still hanging around the common room.

She grins brightly. “All right. It’s late, you should probably get some rest. You’ll get your schedules tomorrow morning, they’ll be on your nightstands when you wake up. Don’t lose them, they’ll save your life later on in the week.”

As she walks by, she pats Fred on the shoulder. “Just remember guys, if you need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask me or Eddie. It’s what we’re here for.”

Fred collapses onto his bed, trying to ignore the green hangings around the four-poster or the duvet that proudly bears the insignia of Slytherin House. The other boys are getting ready, too, and by some stroke of fate his and Pucey’s beds are right next to each other. He lies there and listens to the others breathing for a long moment.

None of them have George’s peaceful, nearly silent cadence of inhale-hold a second-exhale, inhale-hold a second-exhale.

Fred curls up, buries his head in his pillow, and cries.


	2. True Colours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fred reveals his true colours...

“Oh god, Fred, you can’t wear that on your first day of classes,” says Pucey.

Fred glances down at his (admittedly rather shabby) robes, his neat tie. “Why the hell not?” he says, feeling a thrill about saying the curse aloud. His mum would’ve lectured him about it for at least twenty minutes if he’d been at home, but nobody can tell him how to behave here. Then he wonders if he really ought to feel as good about it as he does, if it's not a sign of his start of darkness.

“Because you’re wearing a bloody red-and-gold tie, that’s why,” says Pucey. “How’d you even get it to do that? I thought the ties changed when you got Sorted.”

Fred feels himself colouring and touches the tie around his neck. “This isn’t an official tie,” he says quietly. “My mum made it for my oldest brother, Bill. We couldn’t… I mean, we don’t have a whole lot of money for… new things.”

Pucey frowns slightly, then grabs his hand. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s see if Clarisse can help.”

“Clarisse?” says Fred.

Pucey rolls his eyes. “Clarisse Lefevre? Our prefect? Seriously, don’t you pay any attention?”

“Oh,” says Fred, and he allows himself to be dragged up the stairs into the Common Room, were Lefevre is talking quietly with a first-year girl. She looks up when Pucey drags him into the room.

“Clarisse!” says Pucey. “Can you help Fred here? He’s got a homemade tie that didn’t change color when he got Sorted. We can’t let him go up to the breakfast table wearing Gryffindor colors, not his first day.”

Lefevre smiles at him. “Yeah, of course I can help,” she says, standing and pulling out her wand. She points it to Fred’s tie.

For a second, all Fred can think is, _A Slytherin is pointing a wand at my neck_. He freezes in place, wondering what she’s going to do, whether he’ll be able to get away in time – his own wand is still in his back pocket, and what a stupid place to leave your wand when you’re surrounded by an entire house full of evil…

But before he can do anything, Lefevre tilts her head and says, “ _Variato_.”

When Fred looks down at his tie, it’s perfect Slytherin green and silver. Pucey grins and holds out his hand for a high-five, but Fred just fingers the knot, ignoring him.

Because part of him had kind of hoped that if he’d showed up at the breakfast table with a Gryffindor tie, his brothers would understand that he’s not really a Slytherin and he never wanted to be. He had hoped that George would see his colors and forgive him for getting Sorted into the snake house.

_Why didn’t I tell the hat I wanted Gryffindor?_ Fred thinks to himself, not for the first time.

“Hey,” says Pucey. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” says Fred. “Let’s go.”

When they get to the Great Hall, Pucey carefully steers him away from the Gryffindor table, sits him down with his back to it. To be honest, Fred is a little bit grateful. He doesn’t want to have to look his brothers in the eye the morning after.

Then Errol comes flying down. Flying is probably a bit too kind, as what the elderly bird performs is something more akin to an ungraceful flop onto the table. Fred groans and picks the bird up out of his oatmeal.

“Errol, what are you doing,” he says. “Don’t you have any aim at all?”

Pucey is laughing beside him, but Fred is nervous. Because Errol has a letter for him, obviously, and that letter is probably coming from his parents, also obviously. After he removes the letter from the bird’s leg and sends the poor thing on his way, another owl flies down, whom Fred identifies as Herodotus, Bill’s Barn Owl.

Fred looks at the two letters, one addressed _Fred Weasley_ in his brother’s careful loops, the other in his mother’s frantic and cramped hand. He contemplates burning them without opening them, or putting them in his suitcase and never letting their contents see the light of day. In the end, he decides to open the letter from his brother first. Maybe that will be easier.

_Hey Fred,_

_George wrote me last night and said you’d been Sorted into Slytherin. He seemed pretty upset, and I can imagine why. It’s got to be pretty tough to be separated from your twin like that. You two were literally born attached at the hip – it’s hard to imagine you on your own._

_I just wanted to let you know it’s okay that you’re a Slytherin. It doesn’t automatically make you evil or bad. You stick close to us, to your brothers, and we’ll watch out for you. Take some time today and talk to George. He already misses you._

_Bill_

Fred swallows and opens the next letter.

_Dear Fred,_

_Did you know all three of your brothers at Hogwarts wrote to us last night? They’re worried about you, sweetheart. We’re all worried about you._

_Fred, honey, it’s no one’s fault that you’ve been Sorted into Slytherin. Probably the hat just made a mistake, or maybe you’re meant to be there to make things better for Slytherins. Your father and I want you to know that we don’t love you any less for this, all right? You’re still our Fred, and we still love you very much._

_And I guess now, what with the different colours and all, it will be easier to tell you and George apart, won’t it?_

_You should talk to George. He’s worried sick, you know how he gets. Just let him know that you’re all right and you’re still there for him. He misses you._

_Love,_

_Mum and Dad_

Fred pushes the letters down into his bag. He’ll deal with them later.

“Bad news?” says Pucey.

Fred shakes his head. “Not really. Just some comfort from my family. About the whole Slytherin thing.”

“Hey, they should be proud,” says Pucey. “Not everyone has what it takes to get here. You gotta have drive, passion, creativity, and a great mind to go with it. Most of those lousy Gryffindors don’t have two brain cells to rub together.”

“Shut up,” says Fred. “That’s my entire family you’re talking about there, asshole.”

“Well if it’s a family who thinks you’re gonna turn into a Dark wizard just for getting Sorted into this house, maybe they’re that kind of Gryffindor.”

Fred stands, knocking the bench back and nearly toppling every other person sitting on it, drawing baleful glances and hisses of displeasure. He doesn’t remember when his hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms and held rigid at his sides, glaring at Pucey.

“You shut up about my family,” Fred says, and then he stalks away.

He hadn’t really been planning on going anywhere in particular, but he realizes as he’s halfway across the Great Hall that he’s right near the Gryffindor table. Maybe he could stop, talk to his brothers. Get the support that was promised him, now that he’s away from that slimy snake Pucey. They’re his family.

And sure enough, just as he’s made his decision, he sees a familiar patch of bright red hair – the hair he sees in the mirror every morning, but with the part on the opposite side. “George!” Fred calls out, breaking into a run.

George flinches.

Fred stops.

“George?” Fred says, letting his shoulders drop.

“Fred,” says George. His name drops from his twin’s lips like a hippogriff without its wings.

“Uh, hi,” says Fred. He wants to reach out and touch his twin like he always has, but something in the way George holds his arms curled in against his body makes him hesitate. “So, uh. How’d you like your first night Hogwarts?”

“It was fine,” says George. He drops into a seat at the Gryffindor table and starts glopping porridge onto his plate.

Fred hovers at his twin’s shoulder, fiddling with the air as though he were playing some kind of complicated instrument. “Um, listen. I don’t want… I mean, just because I’m _in_ Slytherin doesn’t mean, I _am_ a Slytherin, George.”

“Really?” says George, still not making eye contact. “Because I know for a fact Mum didn’t make that tie green-and-silver.”

Fred’s fingers fly to the knot of his tie. Dammit, he knew it was a bad idea to change it. “They’re just colours,” Fred says. “They don’t mean anything. It was just a spell, I can change it back.”

That’s when George finally makes eye contact, and Fred doesn’t have to be his twin to see the resentment and repressed tears shimmering there. “Why’d you change it in the first place?” he says. “If you’re not _really_ a Slytherin then why are you in that house?”

Fred’s head drops to his chest, like a tree that’s been chopped down. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m not with you.”

“I don’t either,” says George. “But whatever it is, I’m _glad_ I don’t have it.”

Fred doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything as George turns back to his food. He just stands there, every muscle in his body slack, his head bowed. If he didn’t think it would be completely undignified and extremely painful he would just drop to the floor. He still kind of wants to, but he also knows that his twin wouldn’t even care.

Percy’s hand lands on his shoulder, making him jump a little bit. “Hey,” his brother says, smiling at him. “Come eat breakfast with us?”

Fred looks at George, still sitting with his back to him and eating mechanically. “No,” Fred says. “I should get back to my _own_ table.”

Maybe Pucey’s cheerful chatter can drown out the feeling of betrayal.


	3. Divide and Conquer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double Potions with the Gryffindors....

Of course the first lesson first year Slytherins have is Double Potions with the Gryffindors.

Of _course_ it is.

Why would the universe make this easy for him?

Fred convinces Pucey to sit with him on the opposite side of the dungeon from the Gryffindors. Still, he can’t keep his eyes off the bright red shock of hair over there. Every now and then, George looks up at him, and Fred drops his eyes back down to his desk. He really, really doesn’t want his twin to know how much he’s looking at him.

“Weasely,” Snape snaps. “What exactly is so much more fascinating than this class?”

Fred raises his head, ready to blurt out “Nothing, sir,” but Snape isn’t looking at him. Instead, Snape is leaning over his twin, and George glares up at him.

“Nothing, sir,” George says.

“Then can you tell me what I was just talking about?”

“No, sir,” George mutters.

“Well,” says Snape. “Perhaps your twin was paying better attention.” He turns abruptly. “Weasely?”

Fred blinks, caught now in the black gaze. “Um, you were explaining the dangers of carelessness and distraction during Potion-making, sir,” he says.

“Well done. Ten points to Slytherin,” says Snape. He turns back to George. “And ten points from Gryffindor for not paying attention.”

“But -!” George says, half-rising from his seat.

Fred can imagine the raised eyebrow on the Potions Master’s face. George, clearly fuming, slowly sinks back down into his chair. Everyone knows that Snape isn't fair to Gryffindors.

When Snape's back is turned, George shoots Fred a glare unlike anything he's ever seen on his twin's face before. Fred swallows. It's not his fault that their professor's a bastard. Surely George understands that? Surely George knows that Gryffindors can’t ever catch a break in Snape's class? I mean, how many times have Charlie and Percy complained about him?

But he doesn’t have the time to try communicating with George before his brother has completely turned away, muttering something to the kid next to him. Fred finds himself turning away, too, looking to Pucey, who is diligently taking notes on everything Snape is saying.

“What a prick,” Fred mutters under his breath.

“Who, the professor or your brother?”

Fred doesn’t even bother to answer that, summoning up a glare that ought to be at least half as good as the one George just sent him. It’s a glare that says he’s going to murder Pucey when he gets the chance.

Great, now he’s thinking about killing people. Maybe he really _is_ a Slytherin.

“Oh, come on,” says Pucey. “ _Everyone_ knows Snape favors us. If your twin can’t handle it, then he’s a prick.”

Fred looks over to George again, but he’s still speaking to the kid with dreadlocks. The two of them start giggling silently – Fred only knows that’s what’s happening because he’s seen his brother’s shoulders shake like that before. It hurts, to think that George is sharing a joke with someone else, and not with him.

Snape eventually assigns them a simple potion to work on for the remainder of class. 

Pucey, Fred discovers, actually knows what he’s doing when it comes to Potions. He ends up directing Fred to get their supplies, and shows Fred exactly what they’re doing with the potion, following every direction step by step. It’s one of the most incredibly boring things Fred has done in his entire life.

“Man, do you always do _exactly_ what the books tell you?” Fred asks, watching as Pucey very carefully minces the ingredients into nearly perfect centimeter-long cubes.

Pucey glances up at Fred and flashes him a quick grin. “When it comes to potions? Yeah.” He measures out his cubes and then dumps the correct amount into the cauldron. “You never know when doing something wrong will make it blow up in your face.”

Fred glances back over the potions instructions and considers what he sees in front of him. “Yeah, but, do they _have_ to be cubed that precisely?” he says, taking up some dried shrivelfig. “A little bit of variation on the size can’t completely ruin a potion, can it?”

Opening his mouth, Pucey reaches towards Fred’s shrivelfig, when suddenly there’s an explosion on the other side of the room. The two boys whip their heads around, searching for the source.

Standing in the middle of a foul-smelling but rapidly dissipating cloud of orange smoke are George and the kid with dreadlocks. George is clinging to an unevenly shredded strip of shrivelfig.

Snape sweeps in, his cloak billowing behind him. “Ah, Mr. Weasely,” he says, the amused sneer evident in the tone of his voice. “I see you were trying to work more quickly by failing to _properly_ shred your shrivelfig. What could possibly be so much more amusing that you want to get out of here, Mr. Weasely?”

Snape turns and gestures at Fred and Pucey’s cauldron, which has just turned a deep and effervescent purple. “As you can see, your _twin_ has taken the time to follow the instructions. How lucky for Slytherin that we got the _intelligent_ one of the pair.”

Fred can’t tear his eyes away. George is standing with his hands clenched at his sides, shoulders hunched, face screwed up in fury. It’s a look he’s seen only a few times before, when turned on Bill or Percy. The tips of his ears are going pink, a failing common to their whole family. He looks like nothing more than a firecracker about to explode, but not a word leaves his lips.

Snape sneers and casually leans back, regarding George. “Five points from Gryffindor for _failing to follow the instructions_ , Mr. Weasely, Mr. Jordan.”

Then he glides up to Fred and Pucey’s cauldron, tapping his finger against the side. “Excellent work,” he says, his eyes glittering with hate. “Five points to Slytherin for outstanding performance, Mr. Weasely, Mr. Pucey.”

In all his life, Fred has never felt such anger or humiliation. He doesn’t have to look to know that George’s death glare has trapped him in his sights, and if George knew any wandless magic he’d be sprouting boils all over his face at the moment. Snape is _trying_ to split them up.

So he meets that cruel light in Snape’s eyes and nods stiffly, a harsh and mischievous smile gracing his features. This man may be his head of house, but as he stares into those cool black eyes, Fred knows he’ll never have Fred’s best interests at heart. “Thank you, sir,” he says, his words tinged with bitter sarcasm. “But really, you have to give Pucey the credit. I’m all for saving time whenever possible.”

Snape’s eyes don’t even flicker to Pucey, who has leaned slightly away from their silent confrontation. Fred is struck with the thought that the Potions master could be a Legilimens, trying to see into his brain at this very moment.

So he doesn’t move his lips, but he promises silently, and hopes his teacher gets the message. _I know what you’re trying to do, Snape. But I promise you, as long as I live, I will_ never _leave my family. You will_ never _turn me against my brother. And I hope that, one of these days, you choke on your own cruelty._

Although he gives no indication that he received the message, eventually the staring match ends when Snape sweeps away.

“What was _that_ ,” Pucey mutters under his breath.

Fred grins, and knows it’s a nasty one. “I think I may have started a feud with the Head of Slytherin,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnd that's the last chapter I wrote. I know it's not much, but I hope you still enjoyed this little snippet! Feel free to take off with this wherever you want if you're interested! Just let me know in the comments!


End file.
